This site went live in October 2010 to flesh out technology and legality of CYBER PRIVATEERING as I wrote DADDY'S LITTLE FELONS. The novel pays homage to my old friend Judge Pat Brian, who died of pancreatic cancer on June 28, 2010.To get updates as new articles are posted, enter your email below:

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Monday, April 25, 2011

Wardriving, the new easy entry career

If I were writing an ad for someone offering better security practices, I'd use the headline:

Got WEP Wi-Fi? Then you're toast.

Want to see how easy it is to hack into a Wi-Fi system that uses WEP security keys? Just go to YouTube and search. You'll soon find a crackling-voiced and probably pimple-faced adolescent showing you how to do it in just a few minutes (sorry, I'm not going to do your homework for you). Then charge up the battery on your laptop and go driving around neighborhoods populated with luxury homes. Pretty soon you'll be accessing some really rich people's banking and credit files. And if you're lucky enough to find a mansion with a few newspapers lying on the driveway (indicating the target is on vacation), you can probably write yourself a nice check from their online bank account (hint: their passwords are sitting unencrypted in their address book under the name of their bank).

Most of the currently reported wardriving exploits go after larger retail establishments through their Wi-Fi systems (see today's news story), since today's cyber criminals are going after quantity, not quality. Why risk getting caught in a sting directed at larger criminal organizations (law enforcement would rather go after lower hanging fruit than the one-off targeted thief), when you can have a nice little boutique thievery operation that flies below The Man's radar?

Yes, my solution will sound like a broken record:

Licensed and bonded cyber privateers could sell insurance policies to the private banking operations of larger institutions, who could in turn indemnify their best (rich guys) clients. And those banking operations could act as their own bonding authority, thereby streamlining the approval processes.

I defy you to come up with a better, more efficient, and highly deterrent approach.

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Implementation suggestions for THE MORGAN DOCTRINE are most welcome. What are the "Got'chas!"? What questions would some future Cyber Privateering Czar have to answer about this in a Senate confirmation hearing?

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Background: Welcome black hats, white hats and cyber swashbucklers

The Revolutionary War was fought, financed, and pretty well WON by bonded privateers, legalized pirates who were given Letters of Marque and Reprisal by the Continental Congress and authorized to attack, capture and monetize British ships. The purpose of this site is to explore the possibility of a modern-day doctrine much like the Monroe Doctrine, by means of which the U.S. government could legally and, more importantly, effectively stop international hackers. Current cybercrime law is not only ineffective, but downright stupid. My Linux servers are attacked hundreds of times a day (mostly from China and former USSR domains), yet if I retaliate against those servers with some creative technology at my disposal (I know some VERY smart guys), then I am in violation of federal law and subject to some onerous penalties. We need more than a new law. We need a new international doctrine. I call it The Morgan Doctrine, named after Morgan Rapier, a fictional character I've created (hey, this is my way of establishing ownership of the concept, should it ever see the light of day).

Why a new international doctrine? Simply, nothing else will work. Introduced on December 2, 1823, the Monroe Doctrine told the world to keep their hands off the Americas. Combine this with current legal thinking on "hot pursuit" of fugitives. In 1917 the US Army went into Mexico after Pancho Villa. More recently, in 1960 Israeli Mossad agents abducted Adolf Eichmann from Argentina. Granted, much of the world regards the Eichmann adventure as a violation of international law. I don't share that opinion and therefore use it as the third leg of my Monroe-Pancho-Aldof platform for The Morgan Doctrine.

If someone comes into your home and attacks or attempts to rob you, you may shoot them dead. You may do so as long as they expire on your property. But what about cyber criminals? They attack you in your home from their homes. Retaliate in kind, and you go to jail. The Morgan Doctrine states simply that if you attack my computers (or my banking assets held in US-based computers), then under a certain set of well-defined conditions, a licensed and bonded "cyber privateer" may attack you in your home country and split the proceeds with the U.S. government. For the sake of argument, let's call it a 50-50 split (heh heh).

Right now, American law enforcement is completely unequipped to deal with the sheer number international cyber hackers. Sure, I could report each of the thousand daily attacks to the FBI, as could the millions of other attackees in the USA. But the volume of such reports would make any meaningful resolution laughable. Not to mention that the FBI has no jurisdiction outside the USA. Yet to make such "enforcement" profitable to recognized (ie, "bonded" "deputized") privateers, as Heath Ledger's Joker said in his last role, "Now you're talking!" You raid our bank accounts, we raid yours. You make money from off-shore child pornography, we're going to loot your bank accounts and, with some REALLY creative black hat operations, you will be taken off the grid worldwide to the extent that you'll not even complete a cell phone conversation for the remainder of your miserable depraved life. Okay, that last part probably won't fly, but you get my drift.

The purpose of this site is to explore the mechanics, legalities and practicality of The Morgan Doctrine.

And I will be the sole arbiter of whether or not your comments get posted. As Mel Brooks wrote, "It's good to be king."